Corporate eLearning Strategies and Development

ProtonMedia.com has been on my radar for quite some time. There was a time when 3D virtual environments were all the rage...think SecondLife. Then the fad dropped, but the reality that lies in the usefulness of these tools remains.

Like every other technology used for training, it's not meant for every training problem. But if you have the right training problem and capable users, then I believe interactive 3d environments can prove to be highly effective.

Check it out!

ProtoSphere 2.0 Trial Download here.

So, if you are one of the people mad about the EULA for iBooks2.  And you are convinced that companies will not use Author for training materials? THINK AGAIN!!!


MacTrast posted "Level 3 Looks to iPad to Reinvent their Sales Team".  They are relaying the story from Information Week's article "iPad's for All: One Sales Team's Story".
While neither article specifically mentions iBooks as part of the intended use, I can bet that it's coming.  I mean, why not? Right? 1,300 Sales people outfitted with iPads means the delivery channel is ready and the sales team will expect it.

The last paragraph of the article states:
What's next for Level 3's iPad app? Taylor doesn't pretend to know. "Enterprise IT is dead," he likes to say--meaning IT needs to take the consumer tools people like to use, watch and learn how people work best, and then provide systems that fit. He's convinced there's something important and different in how efficiently people interact with the tablets' interface, and that "we've only scratched the surface of using that."  If you work for Level 3 in the training department will you please contact me :) 

The eLearning Guild released it's highly anticipated TOP TOOLS report today.

Get the download here.

Of course this report was completed prior to the Apple announcement.  But next year's report, I suspect, will have a new tool on the list: iBook Author.  It's definitely a game changer.

What I've discovered over the last few years with regards to iOS is that many people start out wanting to create an iPhone app because they have some information to share.  What they really want to create is an interactive experience...more like a digital book.  Author makes the development of interactive digital content easy, and the app is free.  So, why not? Right?  But I digress...

Here are just a few of the data points revealed in the report:

• 46% want ability to support mobile delivery of their #eLearning media 
• Adobe Captivate has largest media tool market share with 40.4%
• Top-rated #eLearning Media Tool by Cost = Audacity
• 85.6% rate Adobe Photoshop Excellent for #eLearning graphics creation and/or content editing
• 67.1% say Lectora is essential for their overall #eLearning Media toolkit
• 70% report being able to use SnagIt and Audacity effectively within 1 week of use

Find out more from the author of the report at Learning Solutions conference in Florida, March 21-23.

Ever since the Apple education announcement I've been blown away by what this means for our industry.  In the process of scanning the new and improved iTunesU I found this interesting podcast.  It's called "What Great Bosses Know".  Here is the description from iTunesU...
"Jill Geisler heads the Poynter Institute's leadership and management programs. In these Poynter podcasts, she shares practical leadership for managers who want to be great bosses." Episodes 13 titled 10 Training Tips caught my eye.  It's only 4 minutes so I listened.  Here are her tips.

1. Adults learn differently than young people
2. Make learning practical
3. Interactivity is better than passive learning
4. Do not use Powerpoint as a teleprompter
5. Each person learns a little differently
6. Always tap into the wisdom of the room
7. Don't embarrass people
8. Have fun
9. Always end with next steps in mind - What will the students DO after the class
10. Always include evaluations in your teaching

I like these tips.  Sure, many of you will say, "yeah, duh".  And I know some of you are making a list in your head of all the things she missed or forgot.  But that's not the point I'd like to make.  I don't know what Jill's background is, but she obviously has the ear of many Sr. Management types who NEED to hear this information.  Maybe these managers will be delivering a training session and just one of these tips could resonate with them.  That's helpful.
I often hear of the struggles to "get a seat at the table".  We want what we know about instructional design, and corporate training design, to be important and cared about.  Maybe iTunesU can help?  
Now that Apple has introduced the hardware, delivery system, AND authoring tool for designing, delivering, and consuming instructional content, it's only a matter of time before the market is flooded and ONLY the BEST instructional designs will float to the top.  And, at some point every training manager, or CLO, in the Fortune 500 will hear from their C-level peers, "Why can't our LMS be easy like iTunes U? And why aren't our training manuals as cool as the textbooks on my kid's iPad?"

The Adobe Captivate blog's new post is titled Course Companion for Adobe Captivate.   According to the blog post a preview has been launched at the Adobe Labs.

Get the free download here from Adobe Labs.

The blog post says...
You will be able to - 

• Track usage of content
• Track learner behavior
• Get feedback on the course by tracking the learner metrics
• Track progress of the course as you roll it out
• Track effectiveness of the content

VERY interesting!  What do you think?  Is this something you are excited about seeing?

Obviously the Captivate team feels there is a need for this type of tool.  Is this something the Captivate community requested?  If you are a Captivate user, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

This morning Apple held a press event to announce their entry into the world of textbooks.  Everyone knew this was coming.  It's just been a matter of when and what will it look like.  And basically, what it looks like is a complete game changer.  Not just because the iBook Store will now sell you interactive textbooks via your iTunes account, but because they also announced a new authoring tool...and it's FREE!

I think digital books with integrated media were an inevitability.  After all they've sort of already existed in other forms such as websites, and apps, and pdf files, etc.  So, the big story is really about how this effects the billion(s) dollar industry of textbook publishing.  Apples iBooks will sell for no more than $14.99.  So, if the publishers are looking to keep their profits at current levels that most likely means someone is going to get cut out of the deal.  It's obvious that someone is the author.  But the good news is that with a free authoring tool and the iTunes/iBook marketplace, I think the authors may end up getting the better end of this deal.

I've been it for several years now but I'll say it again, "Teachers will be the next millionaires".  With today's technologies, and the new technologies just around the corner, there is no reason why a great teacher couldn't produce content for sale, and mentor students for a fee, and make a very good living.

I've only taken about 20mins to review iBooks Author (direct download link iBooks Author).  But the exciting thing is that if you are familiar with Apple apps then it won't take much more than that for you to start writing a fully interactive textbook of your own.

The starting templates are beautiful...very similar to templates in Pages with clean elegant designs.  I started with the Contemporary template and just started clicking around.  It's so easy to get started that really wish I has some sort of textbook project to be working on.

It's easy to incorporate videos, images, and other media by simply dragging and dropping.  But like I said, this is an Apple app and that's just how you do it. No fuss.  You can also add shapes, tables, and charts which is also similar to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

The new features are in the form of widgets:  Gallery, Interactive Image, Keynote, 3D, HTML, and Review.  You'll be happy (or not) to know that the Review widget is simply a multiple choice quizzing tool. From the Apple web site...
"Let readers test their knowledge using a variety of question types: multiple choice, choose the correct image, label the image, or a mix of all three. Authors can include six possible answers to each question."  The accepted 3D format is COLLADA or .dae.  It's been a while since I've worked in 3D and so this format is new to me.  But according to wikipedia it looks like all the major 3D creation apps support the standard.

I'll let you go off and explore the Apple site and other places to get more details.  For the sake of this blog I want to know if you think this is revolutionary, or a game changer, for the work that you do?  Would you consider iBooks to be eLearning? Are you concerned about SCORM compliance?  Or how about LMS connectivity?  Many of you work in Windows only environments so does this make you think a little harder about buying a Mac?

mLearnCon is only about 5 months away.  If you are planning on creating iBooks between now and then let me know and we can figure out a way to showcase your work.  This is big news for Mobile Learning so we will most definitely be talking about it at mLearnCon.  mLearning is only just beginning!

This YouTube video shows Interactive Computing being demo'd in 1968! Wow! That's the year after I was born.  I had NO idea computing was that far along in the late '60s.  It's a long video to watch but just speed ahead every few minutes and you'll see some amazing technologies... considering the historic perspective.



Douglas Engelbart demonstrates interactive computing, at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco: mouse, on-screen windows, hypertext and full-screen word processing. 
9 December 1968.

[UPDATE - Just wanted to give credit to the Social Learning Community on Yammer for inspiring this blog post. I think this topic is important to the eLearning community as a whole and so I'm happy to extend the conversation to the readers of this blog.]

As a member of the eLearning/learning/training/education community it feels like the alphabet soup of terms has become muddled again.  I suppose all industries go through this to some degree, and while it's mildly frustrating, going through the exercise can reveal some insights and help us focus our work.  So let's take a look at what happened.

The short version is that training departments, for many years, got very little respect.  We, as a community of professionals were convinced that a rebranding needed to occur and we wanted to become LEARNING professionals and not TRAINING professionals.  After all, training seemed to cheapen our work as adult learning practitioners and instructional design architects...and all the other fancy names we like to call ourselves.

But now it appears that we've come full circle.  With the growing discussions around informal vs. formal "learning", we've come to realize that, in fact, we DO NOT create learning.  And yikes! Learning actually happens without our interventions.  So, to say that we "create learning solutions" or something like that is actually quite silly.  Our bodies, mostly our brains, handles the learning side of things.  The human body is a learning machine.  I hope this isn't shocking to anyone.

In our current corporate culture our job is to make sure that certain bodies (employees) are exposed too, and learning, certain specific things.  These bodies will do the LEARNING on their own IF the correct CONTEXT is provided for them.

Let's stop the conversation right here because at this point we could go off in many different directions.  All I want to do at this point is to get you thinking about Training vs Learning.


I think it's safe to say that our job is to manipulate a person's environment in such a way that we are simply directing, or manipulating WHAT that person's body is being exposed to with the hope that their body's learning response is activated.  I know this sounds very rudimentary but if you think about it this way then TRAINING really does start to sound like a better catch-all term for the work that we do.

Here's wikipedia's take on Training:
"The term training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies. It forms the core of apprenticeships and provides the backbone of content at institutes of technology (also known as technical colleges or polytechnics). In addition to the basic training required for a trade, occupation or profession, observers of the labor-market[who?] recognize as of 2008 the need to continue training beyond initial qualifications: to maintain, upgrade and update skills throughout working life. People within many professions and occupations may refer to this sort of training as professional development."
I understand WHY we so desperately want to be learning professionals and NOT Training Specialists.  But the reality is that what we create is best suited to the term training and NOT learning.  If for no other reason then the fact that nobody can actually create learning.  But we can understand how the human brain learns and optimize the environment of a person needing to learn something specific.  And so it's that understanding of how the human body learns that makes us better at what we create.

So, can a Learning Professional be a creator of Training...um...things? Yep! But are we confusing the market by mixing the terms? Maybe. Does it matter? I don't know.

And now this starts another conversation, "Should it be eTraining instead of eLearning".  Oh boy...<sigh>

The kids are home from school today and it's easy to just think about it as another day off for them.  So I thought we'd quickly Google "I have a dream speech".  As you might imagine there are a lot of resources popping up...

Wikipedia entry
Full text and audio on American Rhetoric
MLK Online

...and of course on YouTube...



While I listen to the speech...again...and again...and read the text I feel moved yet sadly disconnected.  I was born 4 years after this speech was given and have no memories of the '60s and only fleeting youthful memories of the '70s.

I've listened to Nancy Duarte speak at The Learning Solutions conference about how she studied the speech and I've read her book on the pattern of a powerful speech. And it is a powerful speech.  The speech is truly moving on so many levels and gives us an emotional look at the struggles of America at that time.

That brings me to thoughts on context.  The speech was the right speech given at the right time.  And today, I wonder if we'll ever truly hear something this moving ever again.  Today's context is a digital cacophony of the connected world's voices.  It's a flood of speeches, rants, and raving, from everyone with a grievance and then some.  And while this is empowering, and can be viewed as a great equalizer and opportunity for many, we struggle to find nuggets of trusted wisdom that so many crave.

My hope on this Martin Luther King day is that we can all use the wonderful power of the internet to not only learn from one man, but for every person to feel empowered to share their voice with the world.  Because while I don't think there will ever again be ONE powerful voice, or speech, I do believe the connected collection of the world's voices will some day be a chorus we can all appreciate and participate in.

As long as I'm posting about digital textbooks, I might as well mention Apple.  Rumors are swirling around the Apple invite that has gone out to press saying,
“Join us for an education announcement in the Big Apple.”  According to the Mashable article Apple is partnering with textbook publishers.  It all makes sense to me.  After all, why not utilize the now mainstream distribution channel of iTunes and iBooks, and start selling iTextbooks.

I think the bigger question for instructional designers and developers is how can WE publish into this system?  We also want to know if there will be interactive components to the textbooks.  At the very least I hope we're able to embed hyperlinks to YouTube videos, blog posts, etc.  I think some bonus functionality would be something like selecting some text within a textbook and posting it to social networks like twitter, or facebook, or google+.  This increases the factor of engagement significantly which is what students really need.  It's one thing to just sit and read a book.  But it's a significantly better experience if what is read can be shared and discussed with others.

Apple is not very good at the social thing yet.  Ping is lame and iCloud is still clunky and frustrating for many users.  However, they do understand the desire to publish content to other social systems and they have embraced that capability.  So, I'm hopeful they will continue along that path until they can get their own social network functioning...if they ever intend too.

The digital textbook industry is definitely in it's infancy and there are many players to consider.  But since I'm on the subject, I might as well turn you on to Flatworldknowledge.com and their "free and open textbook" system.

There seem to be so many publishing solutions available these days that I'm not sure how college students or professors know how to make the right decision.  In many cases I'm certain the decision is made FOR them by some administrator or sales person.  But I like to think I'm not that jaded :)

Flatworld Knowledge has a great chart explaining their solution.  Well, actually it describes the problem and the solution...as you can see for yourself.

The books are free to the students.  Professors choose the book.  Students choose the format and price for printed versions, audio versions, and soft-cover versions.  Sounds like a pretty decent solution to me.

The very cool option that I like is allowing the professors to edit and customize the book. The books also come with slides, instructor manuals, and test-banks.  I'm not sure if those are editable though.

It may not actually be a purely "free" and "open" solution.  But it sounds like they are making a significant dent in an industry that really needs a kick in the pants.

I saw the KNO eTextBook solution on TechCrunch TV from CES.
The eTextbook is so much more than just flipping digital pages on an eReader.  The features of the Kno eTextbook solution are incredible.  Check out the full list of features here.

There are several features that caught my attention, but I was very intrigued by the presenter's comment about images:
"...any image with labels is automatically converted into a quiz." When I went to the web site I was impressed to see a course manager.  The interface is clean and appealing.  It's got a real Mac-feel to it.  I think the syncing will be critical.  Having your textbooks available on both your laptop and your mobile device is the future.

While the textbook industry takes it's time converting to digital, I'm left wondering what publishers are embracing Kno.  Or are the big publishers going to create their own standards, their own apps, their own formats, their own stores, etc.  I hope the content creators can figure out how to create their content and go directly to the new textbook market...in much the same way that iTunes changed the music buying process.  But that remains to be seen.

I'm a big fan of animation but have very little patience for the old process of creating animated characters.  So, I've always been excited about new tools that make the animation process easier for beginners and hobbyists.  The team that created Toonboom.com have created an animation app called Doodle that is free for a limited time.   I spend about 15mins with it and created this little ditty below.  Of course it's lame, but it was SO easy to do.  And it's the ease of use that will bring me back when I want have time to kill.

The team at EdCetra Training have created this great infographic of Big Data.
With all of the new media creation tools being announced at CES you can imagine how much content will be published in the near future.

Get a handle on your data and start thinking about the importance of big data in your eLearning career.

Last year I started thinking about how tablets and other mobile electronics are becoming cheaper and better than laptops.  So it would seem that the laptop would in fact NOT be the best new device for poor kids around the world.  A tablet would be cheaper and probably more intuitive to use.

So, imagine my surprise when I saw the new 8-inch XO 3.0 tablet being demoed at CES.  Of course it makes perfect sense.  But it's actually a lot cooler than just moving from a laptop to a tablet.
This tablet can be powered with a handcrank and/or via solar technology.  And that's actually a lot more complicated than it sounds.  Not complicated to use but complicated technology design to make it happen. There is a lot of innovation packed into this $100 wonder tablet.

You can check out a great demo video from Gizmodo here.

TWiT also covered it LIVE on the Daily GizWiz show (seen on the left).

This might actually be the only education specific gadget at CES, but I hope I'm wrong.  If you are at CES or following the coverage, let me know if there is anything cool you'd like me to see.

When Mobile First Applies to eLearning you need to attend mLearnCon - June 19-21st - San Jose, CA

The Internet of Things (wikipedia page) has been a concept in existence for over a decade.  You may be hearing about it for the first time here, or you recently read about it somewhere else.  And the reason why is because it's finally becoming much more real.  Many of the gadgets being created using wifi, bluetooth, and bluetooth smart, are still only being embraced by the alpha geeks, but that is about to change.
The Internet of Things is all about connectivity, mobility, and the sharing of data.  WiFi and Bluetooth technology provide the connectivity.  Many of the "things" themselves are small enough to be moved around a home, office, or business while remaining "connected".  And our mobile smart phones provide the interface by which we communicate with the things, view the data they collect, and share it with other people or professionals that can better interpret the data and make decisions.
One company that seems to be leading in the marketing of connected things is WiThings.  The company defines itself this way... "Withings is a leading force in the personal healthcare revolution. It designs, develops, and industrializes health and wellness connected devices that help families across the world take better charge of their health... Withings is a major player in the Internet of Things. The company’s increases the capabilities of an object by the addition of network resources that allows access to infinite calculation and storage capacities without increasing costs. The object’s interfaces are also ported to devices such as mobile phones or computers, to benefit from their resources and capabilities." In my mind, what's not far off is The Internet of Learning Things. I would actually consider these medical devices to be Learning Things as they provide us with the data we need to learn more about ourselves.  As more and more "things" become connected we can begin to make connections between the different data points collected.  Imagine combing the data from your Wifi Body Scale, Heart Rate monitor, and Nike+ all into one app.  You can see how powerful this is going to be.  After all, your bodyweight alone is only one measurement, or data point, in the bigger picture of one's health and wellness.

So, how can the Internet of Things begin to monitor and help us manage our learning?  I have some ideas but I'd love to hear yours.   

Hey! It's CES week! Why is a Corporate eLearning Strategies blog covering consumer electronics?  Well, I wouldn't exactly say that I'm "covering" the show.  However, I am getting a lot of info about new product launches.  I'm actually quite shocked at the number emails I am receiving as an industry analyst.  But it's also quite fun to see it all.

This came from VIZIO inviting me to check out their new PCs.  It's interesting to me because I always think of VIZIO as a TV maker.  And the products in this image look REALLY nice.

So, what does this tell me and why should eLearning people care.  Okay, I know this is going to be a stretch but its also kind of fun :)

1) The TV is increasingly more interesting as a content delivery device...not less.
2) Convergence (an often overused word in computing) is becoming more mainstream.
3) Mainstream adoption of new consumer electronics capabilities means eLearning can get on board.

So that's a long way towards an impact on eLearning, right?  Yes, but seeing the reality of what the future holds can help us prepare.

Think about how powerful it is to participate in a Google+ Hangout while watching a YouTube video.  That experience, as good as it is, is still not quite ready for prime time.  But it will be...soon.  When TV makers get into the PC business and PC makers start getting into the TV business it's easy to see that we are well on our way to a shared video viewing experience.

This is the convergence that has been talked about for many years.  2012 is when this begins to actually work for many people.  Computing on your "TV", and watching television shows on your laptop, iPad, or other mobile device.  Yes, it's available now and many enjoy the experience, but I would still call it new and in it's infancy.  The true convergence and ease of use begins this year.

And since eLearning lags behind consumer technology it's easy to see how this new technology will be useful as a technology delivered learning channel.  Don't worry.  You don't need to start converting all of your training materials just yet.  But aware of what's coming and start thinking about the next 5 years in your org.  Plan now.

Get more CES info and video at their official YouTube channel.

I'd say yes if you're interested in seeing what your employees might be bringing into the office next year.
Of course you could just let your IT department handle that and have them report back. But the truth is that CES is huge and difficult to see it all. So there is no guarantee that you will get the info you need.

The show is next week in Las Vegas. While I am not attending in person this year I know people who are and I'll be monitoring the online front channel as well as the always active back channel.

If you will be there, please let me know and will monitor your blog or twitter stream.

The eLearning Guild turned 10 years old today.  Help me wish everyone at The eLearning Guild a Happy Anniversary!!! You can tweet to @elearningguild or blog about your experiences.  2012 is sure to be a banner year, so renew your membership and stay connected with your colleagues in eLearning from around the world.

Cheers!

If you haven't been following my previous posts you may want to review quickly before diving into this one.  At the very least be sure to have watched the videos from the first link.

What Have We Learned About Training in Over 70 Years
Creative Training Course Titles
Good Story Telling Takes Time - So Does Good Learning

1930s Film Projector I think it's important that we begin to discuss the bigger training questions as they relate to these 2 videos. After all, there is a CONTEXT around each that is quite unique.  And however obvious these points might be, I think it's helpful to point them out because I'm certain their on your mind and you just don't want to ask or comment.  That's cool.

1937 had black and white film on reels of "tape" and it was a physical, analog, medium.  This required a long production process, and a long complicated delivery process.  The film needed to be duplicated and transported to many different locations.  The learners needed to be gathered into a room.  The properly skilled technician needed to setup and run the projection equipment.  Duh! Right? Yea, I know.

Okay, so what does that mean from an instructional design perspective?  Obviously, there HAD to be more to the training than JUST this video.  Did they break up into teams and have a lab session with a differential sitting there in front of them? Who was the intended audience?  Was the film intended for soon to be military vehicle mechanics or was it for ALL new Chevrolet mechanics?  Perhaps it was produced by Chevy but intended to be sent to mechanical engineering schools.  We don't know.  But if you do know, I'd love to hear about it.

The changes in instructional design have changed very little over the decades, while technology has progressed significantly.  The technology restrictions of analog media have long since vanished, and yet I still see the instructional models of old being employed.

Let's just take a look at video.  70 years ago it took a massive amount of effort, by today's standards, to get that film in front of a learner.  Today, with YouTube and other video sharing platforms and the simple fact that the internet is the greatest distribution channel ever, it takes VERY little effort to accomplish the same task.  But the reality is even bigger and better than that.  Because of mobile devices anyone can watch videos where ever they are at any given time.  And the best part is that they can watch it as many times as they want.

Google+ Hangout - 3 Viewers watching
the same video Knowing that your learners can watch your video anytime, anywhere, as often as they want is a significant change in context since 1937.  Heck, it's even a big change since 1997.  And that's just video.   What about the fact that a learner could be watching the video WITH many other learners/classmates from around the globe at the same time.  AND they all could be chatting about the video and sharing comments?  Is this not a HUGE shift in learning context?

Stop telling me that a video is not training.  A video used in today's digital context can absolutely be effective training.  Video can now be a shared, interactive, repetitive, experience at very little cost.  The idea of viewing a film/video once and then moving on to the next part of the training is old and yet we still make that part of the learning EVENT design.  Your videos can be viewed multiple times, on multiple technologies, and in a group or alone with people in dispersed locations across the globe. So, shouldn't we be thinking differently about the instructional design opportunities that video now provides for us?

While the script writing and production values play a roll, it's really the delivery mechanism that changes everything.  That 1937 video is more effective, impactful, and valuable today than it ever was in back in the 1930s simply because it can now be a shared experience between a global audience.

How has video played a part in your eLearning?  Do your learners take advantage of collaborating while watching videos together?  Do you think they'll ever watch your videos on a mobile device?